Copyright 2005-2015

Become a Fan

April 25, 2007

Pitchfest Post #2 - Maybe Not Ready...

Last night I received two emails from the pitchfest people, two very unwelcome ones, as they provided lots of LAST MINUTE info about the pitches we're writing that should NOT have been last minute. Caused a great deal of panic and loss of sleep as I made another pass at my pitch and also wrote down my 'platform.' Your platform is made up of your credentials - education, publications, organizations you belong to, press contacts, etc. Publishers want to know if you've got a running start on the market, at least in your area. Fortunately, with my contacts at Creative Alliance, CityLit, and WYPR, I do. Still. I could have used the sleep.

Today I woke up hating the pitch--it's too long--and worried my first novel might not even be worth it, so I wrote a pitch for Inventory, the one I'm working on now about the summer I spent cleaning out my grandparents' house with my father after their death. The premise is more unusual. So now I have two of them to torment me!

I've written both 6 times today. Each. I'm starting to think I'm the worst writer in the world. Probably because the tone of last night's emails didn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. They were pretty--almost--harsh--about how just because "you're a success in other areas of your life doesn't mean you can write a publishable manuscript," and that all our myths and delusions about the publishing process will be blown away and we will all be starting at ground zero. (And I paid how much for this?) Sounds like someone who spent some years in the military to me...I don't expect anyone to hold my hand but they could balance that with a bit of a positive spin. Jeez.

So below are my pitches so you can see where I started and how it might work. For now. :)

Killing the Good Girl

Back in Baltimore for her sister’s wedding after a two year absence, Leigh McArthur finds herself slipping into her usual good daughter role, which she’s sure will make her lose her mind. Having grown up learning to fear anything and everything from her anxiety-ridden mother, she’s never dared veer from the straight and narrow, and all she has to show for it is her own anxiety disorder. When she arrives, she discovers her mother’s gone off Paxil, her bold, independent grandmother has advanced Alzheimer’s and is now in a nursing home after being found chopping the heads off neighbors’ roses, and her father is working long hours to escape. Wanting to help, but needing boundaries, Leigh agrees to stay one month and dog-sit while her sister is on her honeymoon.

Soon she finds out her on again/off again boyfriend, Will, is now engaged to someone else, and her grandmother, once her ally, is now almost a completely different person. Leigh is left alone to face her renewed panic attacks and anxiety, which have taken on an oppressive personality she’s named Raven, experiencing her as a kind of hallucination. When she ran away from her family, her fear, and Will’s marriage proposal, two years ago, she’d wanted to learn to how to be at home in the world, not to mention her own skin. But clearly not much progress has been made. Desperate to change that, she turns to Martin, a man she's just met under some very questionable circumstances. With his help, she sets off on a dark, sexual journey in order to break free of the personal myths she's believed in all her life.

Then her mother shows up needing a place to stay because she’s left Leigh’s father, Will comes around wanting answers and maybe her as well, and Ryan, the last guy she dated in California, calls with some surprising suggestions. All the while Raven grows more powerful. Leigh must decide whether to run again, ask for help from the unlikeliest of sources, or continue on a course which she knows will culminate in a soul-baring test she can’t afford to fail.

Inventory

The Summer of Death covered a lot of ground: sex, love, madness, secrets, family, money, murder, music, makeup, shoes, and lots and lots of sugar packets. Nina Johnson has just moved in with her sister after leaving a man she thought she was going to marry, when both her grandparents die within months of each other, then the ex-husband of her best friend a few days later. Soon she is knee deep in cardboard boxes, beginning what she thinks will be an uneventful summer teaching a writing class, comforting her friend, dodging her ex’s emails and phone calls, and clearing out her grandparents’ house with her father.

But soon it’s clear things with her grandparents were not what they seemed. First they find a kitchen and closets jammed with too much of everything, then money and jewelry hidden in odd places, a steak knife under her grandmother’s mattress, and other disturbing discoveries. Suddenly the house is not the safe place in her memories, but a kind of prison for two people suffering from dementia. It’s all a little too scary, so Nina tries to balance these weekends by throwing herself into her teaching, and spending time with a writer moonlighting as an Animal Control officer, who she meets when he comes to remove a bat from her sister’s house, and makes her laugh for the first time in a long time.

As the summer wears on, new surprises and secrets come to light. Nina and her father play old Bobby Darin and Rosemary Clooney records, and he tells her stories about her grandparents’ lives and his childhood that make Nina realize how little she knew them, and especially her father. She vows to take better inventory of her family and her own life. So when her ex shows up in person wanting her back, she wonders if she made the right decision to leave. She gets her answer when the shocking truth about her grandparents’ deaths is revealed and she finds herself doing something she never thought she was capable of.